DetectiveRed

Writer's block is fucking me the last couple of days, but I wanted to get something out. I kinda like this chapter and hopefully from now on these chapters will be less aimless. Hopefully, this is better.

Adrian’s parents were quiet. He’d told me what I had to say. I knew what I had to say, but that didn’t make confrontation any less terrifying. They were somehow scarier than my parents. At least my parents made it obvious when I made them mad. I needed to apologise though. Apologise for saying I was a guy. They wouldn’t talk to me otherwise. 

“I’m sorry. It was a phase. I will always be your daughter.” I’d rehearsed it over and over in my head. Adrian had told me to keep it brief and follow the structure he’d perfected. Now I just had to hope it didn’t sound forced.

“Do your chores, Rachel. We will talk after you’ve done that,” his dad said. I hoped they would warm up to me.

“Okay, Father.”

Scrubbing this family's dishes gave me a lot of time to think. I knew that if I wasn’t such a disappointment to my parents, they would probably have been much warmer towards me. Being a sissy was what made them hate me. A guy like Adrian would make them proud. Dad would finally have the son he’d always wanted. A son he could take camping, fishing and kayaking. A son that wasn’t a husk of a human being. I felt tears start to well up again. I knew all of this. I knew he would have preferred any other child as a son, so why did it hurt to remember that. Why was I sad they would like Adrian more than me? I had accepted that. Adrian hopefully could make them proud. Something I could never do. Would his family warm up to me if I acted like a normal girl? Could I make them proud eventually? I doubted it. I would always be a failure and this family seemed to have less of a tolerance for that. 

Once the dishes were done, I went to Adrian’s room. Last time I’d been in there I’d been panicking; I hadn’t gotten a chance to take a proper look. His laptop was still on his desk. With his password, I could now login if I wanted, but if his laptop was anything like mine, that would be a massive invasion of privacy. I’d ask him about it later. 

I sat down in his desk chair and turned to look at the room. This would be where I lived for at least the next year. This would have to be my home. There was a black fluff ball sitting on the bed, I assumed it was one of his cats. This room must be covered in cat hair, if I was in my old body I’d be having a massive allergic reaction. 

I decided to look in his cupboards. Digital life was where someone would be true to themselves, but a cupboard was where you put things your parents wanted you to have, but you didn’t want. That’s what I used my cupboard for at least. Since it was Adrian's cupboard it would probably be filled with girly things his parents tried to make him wear. Things that I did want to wear. If I could wear something cute, it would help my case with his parents, it would show them that I didn’t mean what Adrian had said.

I began rifling through the cupboards looking for something pretty to wear. There was so little to find. I was pretty sure it was all a mess that Adrian couldn’t be bothered cleaning up and threw in there so his parents wouldn’t see it. Adrian always seemed so cool before, the way he seemed so carefree and kind. The way his face somehow smiled so nicely, despite how much he had been hurting and the way that he never made fun of me for being alone. I might have liked him, if I was capable of imagining myself in a romantic relationship and if we hadn’t swapped bodies. I kept digging. I had to push that thought from my head. 

“Are you looking for this?” It was his mother. I pulled my head out from his cupboards. She was trying to show me something. What did she think I was looking for? “I searched up what this is Rachel. I am not going to let you destroy your femininity!” Fuck. 

“His binder,” I said under my breath. Of course, it was his binder. 

“Who’s he?” I needed to find a way out.

“I was holding that for a friend.” A half-truth. I was technically holding it for Adrian. That excuse probably wouldn’t hold water. 

“Is it one of those people?” Her voice was intense. She didn’t consider ‘those people’ as people. I needed to find a way out. 

“He’s a guy, a normal guy. He just has a…” I’d researched binders before, there was another purpose for them. I just needed to remember it. “A hormone problem.” Gynecomastia, that was the condition. I remembered wanting it.

“What is his name then?” 

“Alex.” That’s the name of his body.

“Do you have any pictures of this Alex?”

“I do, I just need to get on my phone.” An excuse, I just needed to text Adrian to send a selfie, then maybe I could find a way out of this and get her to not yell at me. 

Adrian: Adrian, I need you to send me a selfie. I need to prove to your mum that you exist. 

Alex: Explain later. Selfie on its way. 

His face appeared on the phone screen. I was lucky he responded so quickly. It felt so odd, showing her a picture of what used to be my face, to prove that her son existed. Hopefully, it would work. 

“See, here he is.”

“Why were you holding it for him then?” The awkward conversation from earlier today flashed in my head. I wasn’t going to use that excuse yet, that was the last resort. 

“I wanted to help him.” 

“Why couldn’t he do it himself?” Another question. I was being interrogated. Either she accepted what I was saying or I had to throw her a curveball.

“It was meant to be a gift.” 

“Why are you buying a gift for a boy I’ve never heard of before? Why should I believe you after you spewed all that nonsense last night about being a man?” I felt like I needed to apologise to Adrian for what I was about to say.

“Because he’s my boyfriend.” The words were wrong, I had to clarify them. I had to make them better. “I mean not yet, but I have a crush on him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She seemed to lighten up. Adrian was right, quelling their fear’s about him being a lesbian seemed to help. I still didn’t know what to say after that. 

“I thought you’d be mad.” I imagined I was back home and my mum asked me the same thing. It was all I could do to stop myself from crying. She hadn’t asked something like that in years. Dad said it was coddling me. 

“I’m just glad you’ve given up your delusions.” The yelling from last night flashed in my mind. Delusional, that's what Dad had called me. “I’ll give this to you to give to him. Don’t misbehave around him.”

“Thank you, Mu-- Mother.” I slipped up again. 

“What were you looking for if not this thing?” She hated the idea of the binder even being near me. I could tell. Even if I had justified it, she didn’t trust me. There was no point lying now. If I told her maybe she could show me where the clothes I wanted to try on were. Still getting the words out was hard. Wearing dresses wasn’t something a guy should do. That’s what I’d been told, even though I was a girl I couldn’t stop thinking that I would be screamed at for asking. 

“I was looking for dresses,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure I wanted her to hear me.

“You were looking for what?” She asked.

“Dresses.” 

“You always shoved them under your bed. Why do you suddenly want them now? You were so ungrateful when I got them for you.” I didn’t know what to do. Or how to talk to this lady. Adrian had given me so many notes on his father but barely any on his mother. 

“I want to look pretty,” I said.

“For the boy?” She expected an answer. A perfect out of this conversation. 

“Yes, I want to look beautiful for him.” I’d been so uncomfortable with his fake crush idea earlier, but it had just saved me. I’d have to thank him. 

“I’ll let you do that. I will see you at dinner. I’ll tell your father about the boy.” 

“Thank you, Mother.”

She closed the door behind her and I immediately dived for the bed. The cat who had been snoozing jumped in surprise at my sudden movement towards it, but I didn’t care. There were clothes I wanted to try under there. Clothes that I should try. I just had to ask Adrian if that was okay.